Almost a new dividend record … almost

I’ve noticed the first day of the month tends to be a good one for dividends.

How good? Well, Tuesday, the first of August, I nearly pulled in a new record haul – $7.94 from a combined six different companies. I don’t know if the companies like to get the dividend payment out of the way or what? No matter the reason, though, I love the momentum it gives me early on.

One day in and I already have almost eight bucks of free cash to play with.

Dividends

The $7.94 I earned was nearly a single-day record … nearly. I collected $8.69 back on May 26 – a great number (for me), but a skewed one, too. Remember what happened that day? Yes? No? Maybe so? If you said Costco shelled out an impressive $7 special dividend, you’d be right.

Don’t get me wrong: I was thrilled by that special dividend. To this day it’s still the only one I’ve been paid from any of the 100-plus companies in my portfolio. If it weren’t for that special dividend, though, I’d be writing about a new single-day high today … and it’s just the first day of the month.

Here’s a rundown of the dividends:

$2.89 from Verizon

$2.94 from AT&T

$0.63 from Darden Restaurants

$0.49 from General Mills

$0.39 from Bristol Myers Squibb

$0.60 from Deere.

Of the six, just two of the dividends, those from DE and BMY, were the same as the ones I was paid last quarter. That should tell you all you need to know about the beauty of dividend-growth investing.

Two of the companies, GIS and DRI, increased their dividends without me having to do a thing. GIS upped its by a cent while DRI boosted its quarterly payout from $0.56 to $0.63. The other two, VZ and T, paid me more because I picked up several more shares of both between now and last quarter.

Purchases

I picked up a share of General Electric for $25.48 Tuesday, bumping my position up to three shares at an average cost of $28.42. I know GE is struggling at the moment, but, sometimes those are the kinds of companies I feel I should be buying. It’s trading right around its 52-week low and, while that doesn’t mean it can’t go lower, I feel as though it has just about hit the bottom. The turnaround starts now, baby.